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One Artist’s Journey
I like to call myself a recovering artist. I like this description because it has a certain curiosity-piquing je ne sais quoi and it references my lifelong addiction to art and creativity. It also raises the question of why anyone would voluntarily quit the enchanting life of an artist. Spoiler alert — doing shows all the time becomes increasingly physically demanding for an ageing painter. All those classy exhibitions certainly look glamorous on the outside, but behind the scenes, there’s a whole lot of grunt-work, and I was fed up with grunting. There’s a classic artist’s joke — Q. What’s the difference between an artist and a puppy? …
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Declutter your Memoir
Recently, I had to mop up a flood in my basement, which forced me to move a lot of stuff I’d been storing, keeping and generally shoving out of sight and out of mind, some of it for decades. You know the kind of thing…”Oh, that’s useful. I’ll keep it until the other one, the one I’m using right now, breaks or wears out or runs out of power/ink/paper” (or whatever is necessary to keep it running). Or, “That belonged to my grandparents. It’s worth something. Maybe Antiques Roadshow will pay me a lot of money for it.” Or, “I just can’t throw out…
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The Song of the Spoken Word
Music surrounds us. Throughout human history, it has played a big part in our communications. But only in the past 100 years has it been available to everyone all the time. Before this, only a few very wealthy patrons could enjoy music in their homes, and only if they knew how to perform, play an instrument or hire someone to play for them. Every religion has used music to praise a variety of gods, (entertainment being a large part of their attraction for the general populace), and indigenous peoples have all had their own styles of music, often used to communicate over long distances, to appease the spirits and to ward off…
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Creative Writing, Productivity, Structure and Plotting, Theme, Purpose and Outcome, Training, Lessons
How to Focus your Blog Post
Start with the End in Mind Recently, a reader asked me, “How do you write a story with the end in mind? How do you know what the end is before it’s written?” He was responding to a blog post in which I wrote about using constraints to spark creativity. One of the points I made was: “Writing with the end in mind applies especially to writing memoirs. When you first apply a life lesson, a theme, a psychological or theoretical point to the memoir as its raison d’être, you don’t need to think about everything that doesn’t fit the point. “But if you don’t…
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Productivity, Prompts, Structure and Plotting, Theme, Purpose and Outcome
Less Is More
This morning, I went into my writing group completely unprepared to write. I had to show up at 11:00 a.m. and I’d been doing something else when the timer startled me with its petulant beeping, reminding me to get online immediately, if not sooner! Now, most times, when I go into the group, I know what I’m going to write — at least I have some idea or framework for the words I’ll be putting down — but for some reason, this morning I had completely forgotten that I had to write this blog post, so when one of my writer friends asked me what I’d be working…
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I’m Old, Dammit! Not Dead!
A few months ago, I received an email from a subscriber and it got me thinking… This lovely lady said something that’s been tickling away at the back of my mind for some time, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to explore it a bit. Here’s what she said: “Beverley, I love your website. It feels warm and soothing, like slipping into a warm bath. Ahhhhhhh… “It’s so nice to feel appreciated as a senior. As I scrolled through your blog posts I said to myself, ‘when seniors feel isolated, this is a good place to visit because it honors our life experience.'” “Honours our life…
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Ground your Reader with Sensory Description
We all know that it’s important to immerse our readers in our story in order that they experience it fully, but how do we do that? “Show, Don’t Tell” is a truism that writers cannot avoid. We hear it everywhere, but what does it mean; how does it work? Engage your reader, say all the great writers; readers must lose themselves in the story. But how can we do this as writers ourselves when we don’t know how our favourite authors have done it for us as readers? One way, (though not the only way) is through clear sensory description. If we remember that a story should always…
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Creativity, Productivity, Thoughts, Opinions and Philosophical Discussions, Training, Lessons, Writers and Writing
Are you a terrible writer?
Have you ever suddenly decided halfway through a writing project that it’s all crap? That everything you’ve done up to this point is garbage and you’ll never be a “real” writer? Do you habitually reach a point in your drafts when you convince yourself that it’s not good enough, it’ll never be good enough, and you should throw it out and start over, but you desperately try to stick with it, even though you have an overpowering urge to delete your work and start again with a different style or P.o.V. or…anything? Welcome to the world of the frustrated writer. Anyone who’s any good at all…
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Appreciation and the Joy of Covid
When things go right, feeling and showing appreciation — that’s easy. But when things go wrong — not so much. Road Trip The weekend before last, I took my first trip out of my small home town since the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. It was downright scary, leaving the nest. Over the past year and a half, the only places I’ve been were my home, the grocery store, the drug store and the dog park, oh, and twice to the vaccination clinic. Advantages of Lockdown While it’s been difficult, not seeing people for days on end, I appreciate the time…
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The Evils of Comparison
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Oscar Wilde The saints are the sinners who keep on trying. — Robert Louis Stevenson Do you think you’re a crappy writer? Why do you think that? Did someone tell you that your writing sucks? Where did this belief originate? Whose voice do you hear in your head? Was it a teacher in the third grade or the fifth or the tenth, telling you that you’re not good enough to be a writer? I call bullshit! You’re not being fair to yourself — You’d never ask a child to paint like Rembrandt, dance like Nureyev, or sing like Pavarotti,…
